The Toxic Avenger

 A few years after its festival run, The Toxic Avenger, Macon Blair's reinvention of Troma Entertainment's signature superhero, has finally started playing at theatres near us. Should we dump it back in the sewers? Or should we let it rise? Let's find out.

Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage) is a janitor trying to live a simple life Tromaville (St. Roma's Village). That life ends when he's diagnosed with a brain tumor, and his insurance won't cover him. He tries appealing to his employer, CEO Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon) of the BTH company, for help. Unbeknownst to Winston, BTH is a snake-oil company, and is singularly responsible for the town's poor health. Unsurprisingly, Bob and his henchwoman Kissy (Julia Davis) throw him out. 

Winston then tries corporate burglary, only to run into crusading reporter J.J. (Taylour Paige), and a murderous rock band called The Killer Nutz. The Nutz throw him into toxic waste, which mutates him into a creature nicknamed Toxie (Luisa Guerreiro, with Dinklage voicing the part). As Toxie bloodily cleans-up crime, Bob's benefactors at the mob start breathing down his neck. So, he concocts a scheme to extract Toxie's blood for scientific reasons (like superpowers). In the midst of this, Toxie has to reconnect with his stepson, Wade (Jacob Tremblay).

Everyone with me so far? 

The hardest thing to analyze is its sense of humor. It's unapologetically vulgar and gleefully gruesome, but then again, so are the Deadpool movies. What novelty is there when ultra-violent superhero media is now more common? Sure, it purports to be unrated, but it's actually rated R, released as the director intended. Oh, I think I explained the joke ...

Still, much like Deadpool, it still has fun stomping on cliches. Various parts of Tromaville are introduced with ridiculously gloomy names; some characters don't instantly die violently; an angry mob immediately forms after Toxie; Wade's appeal to Toxie's better nature - during the final battle - quickly falls apart. Its gruesomeness is admittedly still amusing; one particularly vulgar gag actually saves the day. I could go on, but that would ruin some of the fun. Indeed, it's all fun to watch, but I think it works best if you're watching with a crowd (I was the only one there!). 

Winston's plight is played for laughs as much as good taste allows. On one hand, his initial diagnosis is drowned out by an inconvenient construction crew. On the other, his talk with an uncaring insurance rep (Jane Levy) is hilariously maddening. His literal Save the Cat moment, even as onlookers ruthlessly mock him, gets us on his side right away. It's quite nice when he's celebrated as a hero by grateful onlookers at the end (including his creator, Lloyd Kaufman). Nothing seems amiss when Dinklage is switched out with Guerreiro; the suit work and dubbing are flawless. Toxie's makeup job, as well as those for his rogue's gallery, is perfectly freaky.

That rogue's gallery is perfectly headlined by Bob, who's so entertainingly, bombastically evil that he literally turns into the devil later on. Now, I made the mistake a few folks assumed with Toxie and thought it was Bacon underneath that makeup. That's actually Spencer Wilding (who also doubles as the Punk chicken masked Him Under the Hood), and he nails Bacon's mannerisms perfectly. Kissy, who seems to flip-flop between reluctant and willingly villainous, is all-out entertaining when she embraces evil. Fritz (Elijah Wood), Bob's brother, is a pitiable enough sad sack who turns good. Finally, we have Thad Barkabus (Jonny Coyne), the head mob guy, who doesn't add much for a secondary big bad.

J.J., in any other movie, would just be the deuteragonist. She's that, and the film's straight man, and it's quite amusing to see her confront the strangeness. She and Wade get a nice scene together as they bond over their recent bereavements (her sister, his mom). Wade, meanwhile, is decently likable, and is equally sympathetic in his strained relationship with Winston. Sean Dooley has a memorable cameo as J.J.'s boss, Mel Furd (the same name as Toxie's previous civilian identity), who gets one of the aforementioned prolonged deaths. The biggest supporting star, however, is David Yow, as Guthrie Stockings the Wise Hobo, Toxie's heroic mentor.

Now for the technical stuff. It gets pretty obvious whenever it utilizes CGI gore. Some might complain, but I'll let it slide considering this film's delightful unreality, which unless I'm mistaken, is also consistent with the Troma style. Practical effects aren't completely abandoned; there's an animatronic mutant bird who pops up for a few gags. Excellent production and costume designs further help visualize this unreality.

This movie, much like Troma's filmography, isn't for everyone. It's not only crass and violent, but Toxie doesn't show up until about thirty-minutes in. If you can tolerate that, you'll find yourself with a delightfully bizarre matinee. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's still messy fun. That's it for now.